


Force Of Habit

by kiev4am



Category: X-Factor (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Mayhem, x-factor the action movie, x-force nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-29 11:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiev4am/pseuds/kiev4am
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rictor and Shatterstar solve a case the X-Force way.  Mayhem ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. X-Force Rules

**Author's Note:**

> An angst-free three-act action movie of Rictor and Shatterstar getting their X-Force on and demonstrating their awesome old-school teamwork to the rest of X-Factor. Uh, which teamwork would of course be measured in cracked skulls, property damage, creatively interpreted orders and other frankly appalling mayhem which Terry might have warned Jamie about if she'd thought about it in time. Poor Jamie; exploding warehouses are _so_ not noir. In my head this comes with a David Yardin cover showing Ric and 'Star in scowling badass mode, back to back, surrounded by soon-to-be-terribly-sorry bad guys. And that hat is my personal fanservice. _Somebody_ in X-Factor ought to have a fedora, right?

"I think we've got too many people on this," Jamie Madrox said.

Terry peered through the binoculars. "Guido's informant said they'd move today for sure."

"That's the same guy who told us Halloween would be quiet this year," Jamie said bitterly. The team had not appreciated interrupting horror movie night to fight zombies in Central Park - except for Shatterstar, who'd appreciated it a little too much, clearly hoping he could hack and slash his way back to credibility after jumping so badly he'd spilled popcorn on everybody during _The Ring._ The film had hit where it hurt, at his innocent love of TV. Eventually, following a near-evisceration in the kitchen and dire threats from a furious Rictor, Jamie had to ban Guido and Monet from ringing 'Star's mobile with screened numbers and hissing "Seven days..." at him.

They perched high in the cabin of a dockside crane. Below them, in its empty compound, the warehouse was doing its best impression of being derelict and not full of batshit homegrown terrorists. Beside the compound gates, Longshot and Monet lurked and bickered in a rusty van; Pip was somewhere in the warehouse, sneaking around, ready to give the alert and teleport out of there at the first sign of activity; and at the far end of the compound, in another crane, sat 'Star and Rictor.

Jamie opened the radio channel. "Guys, report."

"If nothing happens, I'm going to kill you," Monet informed him. "I gave up a diamond auction for this."

"Rictor?"

"All quiet," Ric said. There was a baleful mumble in the background and he laughed wickedly. " _Somebody_ doesn't think surveillance is the best use of his skills. He'd kill for some Doombots right about now." The mumble became a sullen growl of confirmation.

"Tough," said Madrox. "Tell him he's a detective now, he's gotta learn to be discreet."

Terry pointed the binoculars at the other crane as Ric gleefully relayed this. "Oh my, he's really sulking. He looks like a kid who's been grounded." She chuckled. "Ric's still got that hat on."

"I hate him," Jamie said fervently. Rictor had found the classic brown fedora in a thrift shop. It was an ideal hat for him since it combined absurd levels of scruffy cool with the potential to aggravate his boss every time he wore it; he looked about as noir as _Lethal Weapon_ , but it still worked better on him than it did on Jamie and everybody knew it. There was no justice. "I preferred him when he was miserable," Jamie muttered, safe in the knowledge that he didn't _completely_ mean it. He flipped on the radio again. "Pip should be back soon. If he thinks today's a bust, I'll let you two go home."

"Hey, not fair," Longshot objected. "Why do _they_ get to - "

The radio spluttered static and suddenly Pip was there in the cabin, his coat and hair trailing weird light. He was gasping for breath. "Madrox - they're - you gotta - "

"Pip, what the hell?"

The troll leaned on a chair, ashen-faced. "Bad news, boss. They - they ain't terrorists - I mean, not _just_ terrorists. The terrorism's a cover."

" _What?_ "

"There's about two hundred more goons in there than we thought. They got all these freaky machines running, and a generator. There's some sorta portal tech, I saw 'em open it. People came through."

"Oh, perfect." Why couldn't a stupid little splinter group just _be_ a stupid little splinter group for once? Jamie scowled at Pip. "Is that all?"

Pip shook his raggedy head, his eyes huge. "They're serious business. They just executed a bunch of their own people - cut their heads off right there on the warehouse floor. The main guy made some speech about dealing with traitors on the eve of their biggest deal."

"Biggest deal?"

"Yeah. Get this - the whole place is stacked with fancy metal crates. I got a look inside a couple. Guns. Funny-lookin' sci-fi guns. Lotta other heavy stuff, things that could be bombs or launchers, but mostly these totally not-Earth-issue, big freaking guns. Best guess, these guys are some sort of cross-dimensional arms dealers or gun-runners, with their own private army for security, usin' our back yard as a storefront. I guess today's the day the buyer comes calling."

Looking back, the word Jamie most wished the radio hadn't been accidentally left on for was _gun-runners._

He reached for his phone and called the funeral home. "Hey, Jamie," said Layla.

"How did you - oh, forget it. Listen, I need you, Rahne and Guido over here now. Shit's happening."

"Okay," she said brightly. "We might be a while, you know what the traffic's like at this hour."

"Run the red lights, this is serious. And tell Guido to call up his snitch and fire him." He hung up and looked at Terry. "Goddammit. This might be too big for us."

"Speak for yourself," Monet drawled over the radio, making him jump. "It sounds just the right size for _me._ "

Terry gave him her sternest face. "Decision, Jamie; what do you want to do?"

"Uh, okay. Terry, call S.H.I.E.L.D. We've got to know our limits, people. There's too many unknowns. If we're going to disrupt this 'deal' we've got to do it safely and covertly, and we'll need help."

"Nah... I think we've got this," Ric's voice cut in. He sounded strange, a bit wired, like there was a joke only he was getting. "Don't you, 'Star?"

'Star's voice was clear, close to Ric and the radio. "Absolutely."

"X-Force rules?"

"Oh, I think so." Damn if the two of them didn't sound like they were grinning like idiots.

"Wait, X-Force rules? What X-Force rules?"

"I think that's the point," Terry said gently.

"Oh, no," Madrox muttered. "Nonono. Ric, 'Star, don't even _think_ about it. That's an _order._ Do _not_ do what I think you're going to do." Silence. "Did you hear me, goddammit?"

He hated silence. Silence always meant the same thing: someone was about to either ignore his orders, or obey them with such imaginative latitude that he'd wind up wishing they _had_ ignored them.

"Uh oh," Pip said with relish.

In the corner of Jamie's eye the other crane started to move, swinging out over the roof of the warehouse. He grabbed the binoculars. Somehow, with his usual eerie speed, Shatterstar had already climbed out of the cabin and was crouched on the end of the jib like a little white gargoyle, hair like a match-head, swords glinting. Jamie swore. "Just where the hell did Rictor learn to drive a crane?"

Terry coughed. "Worry more about where he learned to hotwire one."

Jamie turned on her. "It's not funny," he said accusingly.

She pulled her face straight, her eyes dancing. "No, of course not."

A sweep of the binoculars, and suddenly Longshot and Monet were on top of the compound wall. "Hey!"

"Oh, I saw 'Star and thought you'd given the go-ahead," Monet lied sweetly. She gave him a flirty little wave, grabbed Longshot by the collar and flew them both to the shadow of the warehouse's wall where they crept towards the nearest door and edged inside. Ric had parked the crane and was clambering briskly out along the jib like he'd never in his life felt the siren call of a long drop. 'Star leapt straight off the crane to the warehouse roof, some forty feet; landing swords first, he sliced a neat hatch in the corrugated iron and vanished through it in one of those single whatthefuck moves of his that ought not to exist without wirework and CGI. Descending on the crane's cable, Ric trailed him by just a few seconds. Crammed jauntily on the back of his head, the fedora went with him.

"Bastard thinks he's Indiana Jones." Jamie threw down the binoculars. "I hate my team. Terry, get me down there. Drop me from a safe height, I'm going to need a _lot_ of dupes. Pip, follow us."

Almost beneath hearing rose a low, thick noise that made their skulls buzz like a dentist's drill. The windows of the cabin shook. There was a scattershot sound that, in retrospect, was the noise made by thousands of loose bolts popping free at the same time. Gracefully, the whole front wall of the warehouse peeled away from the roof and fell outwards with a stupefying bomb-loud clang.

Pip cackled. "I think that means _come on in._ "

"Oh _God,_ " said Terry. She laughed weakly.

"What?"

"I just remembered. Layla... she said it was nice that you were putting Ric and 'Star together on a job."

A dulcet little air-raid siren of anxiety went off in the back of Jamie's head. It was terribly familiar. "Nice?" he said slowly.

Terry winced. "The phrase she actually used was 'quality time.'"

From inside the warehouse came the festive _whoomf_ of something flammable exploding. Jamie shut his eyes, remembering too late Layla's crack about the traffic. "She knew. That's why they're late. She knew, but instead of being here in time to help, she's making sure they're almost on their own..." He slammed his hand on the driver's console, irritably reabsorbing the startled dupe before he had a chance to speak. "I hate my team. Get me down there."


	2. Quality Time

As he watched his dupes charge into the warehouse, Jamie sighed. He'd seen X-Force in its 'glory' days. He'd more or less expected the row of burning jeeps and the firecracker noise of torched munitions and the occasional whiplash earth tremor as Rictor yanked the ground from under someone's feet. He wasn't surprised by the melee on the warehouse floor or the dirty static of gunshots, blows and curses that barked against the tin roof or the cleanly severed hand that lay in front of him, still clutching an otherworldly eyesore of a gun. Didn't mean he was okay with it, though.

But then Terry pointed upwards, and he most certainly _was_ surprised by Longshot and Monet nonchalantly swinging their feet atop a pile of crates, sipping champagne from crystal tumblers and playing chess on Monet's iPod.

"What the hell are you two doing?" he demanded when Terry flew them up there.

"I don't know what _he's_ doing, but _I'm_ winning," said Monet complacently. "Skill beats luck, every time."

"That totally shouldn't work," Longshot groused.

Pip crackled into view, leering at Monet's neckline. "Findin' space in that costume for an iPod? Now _that's_ ski - _ackkk!_ "

Monet flexed her fist delicately as Pip fell, limbs flailing to teleport before he hit concrete. She gave Jamie a withering look. "And you pay the little creep a _salary._ "

" _For crying out loud!_ " Jamie yelled. He waved wildly at the mess below them. "Why the crap aren't you _helping_ them?"

"D'you think they need help?" Longshot asked curiously.

Jamie opened his mouth and then shut it, his gaze drawn helplessly downwards. The crates stood everywhere in tall stacks, sleek silver pods etched with outlandish symbols that said ACME GUN CO. in _somebody's_ language, giving excellent cover to the men in masks who were shooting, throwing missiles and darting out in tight little knots to join the brawl in the middle of the floor. At the far end of the warehouse towered an industrial teleportation rig like a giant iron collar on its edge. It wasn't hard to find his errant teammates; they fought back to back, a few feet apart, in the dead centre of the fray. 'Star shone like a flare in his white jacket and he moved like some fiery djinn with his own gravity, his own physics, so fast sometimes that he flickered out of sight, tracked only by bodies collapsing in his wake or bullets piercing empty air where he'd somersaulted a nanosecond before. His elegant severity made every strike look like a dance move, except the men reeling off his fists and blades had none of his grace and were either unconscious or missing parts. What unnerved Jamie most was the unashamed passion of it, the obvious fact that 'Star _loved_ this, viscerally and instinctively, loved the speed, the complexity, the gameplay exchange of pain, the thousand razor-sharp moments of risk. Behind the blur of his swords his face wore a closed, blissful expression, as though he were meditating.

Rictor, on the other hand, was one of the scrappiest and dirtiest fighters Jamie had ever seen, and he was anything but zen. Hatless now, he was swinging a gun like a baseball bat and headbutting people when the gun didn't work; he wasn't above using it the right way either, as evidenced by the kneecapped thugs writhing on the floor around him. What he lacked in style he made up for in grit, cunning, unpredictability and being just too goddamn stubborn to fall down when he was supposed to; and when all that failed there was plain old cheating, which was where the earthquakes came in. After a while, Jamie worked out that every third or fourth tremor was less a combat move than a way of buying himself time to watch Shatterstar fight. His sappy fanboy grin in those moments was nearly as unsettling as 'Star's refined brutality.

"We've been picking off the strays and back-stabbers," Longshot explained. "But they're really doing fine without us. Also, this is better than the cinema," he added, holding out the champagne.

"Where'd you get that, anyway?"

Longshot pointed behind him at a steel chiller beaded with condensation. "They were going to toast their big deal with some of Mojoworld's finest. Seemed wasted on them."

" _Mojoworld?_ "

"Best champagne in the universe," Longshot said proudly. "It's fine," he said to Terry's wrinkled nose. "There's no alcohol."

Jamie raised the bottle and sniffed. It smelled okay. He took a gulp and coughed until his eyes watered, trying to stop his brain whirring into the stratosphere. It tasted like cocaine and limousines, red carpet and camera-flash, ice sculptures and diamante and the heart-stopping evening gowns of a million premières; in short, it tasted like very, very expensive television.

"Dear lord. If that kick isn't alcohol, what _is_ it?"

Longshot grinned. "Best not ask."

Jamie looked at him, then had another drink. It was that kind of day. He looked back at the fight, fretfully wondering how two against two hundred could possibly work when the bad guys declined to queue up nicely like they did in movies. His dupes were in the mix, but they were separated from Ric and 'Star by dozens of men, and the bastards kept coming from behind the crates as if they were duplicating too. Ric and 'Star carved their ragged circle of safety over and over again, piling up the bodies but always almost swamped. Then Jamie blinked and suddenly he got it, the method in their mayhem. 'Star's bullet-time deflections aligned with Rictor's punches and shockwaves, moves fitting together so smoothly they covered each other without seeming to try; just as Shatterstar's opponents found their guns jamming or the floor jumping or a well-aimed shot ruining their day, so nobody made it onto Ric's blind side with all their limbs intact. When 'Star lobbed a handgun in Ric's direction he plucked it out of the air without actually looking at it, shot the man in front of him then whipped round and hobbled four others, shooting straight through the place 'Star had been in an eyeblink ago; with no overt communication, he'd dodged to enable the shot. They were a unit, a spinning multi-armed Swiss knife of carnage. Gradually, inexorably, they fought closer to the portal and the small group of men who were backing up to it, no doubt protecting their leader.

"How are they even _doing_ that?" Jamie said.

Terry smiled. "Force of habit. It's how they learned. And, y'know, chemistry."

Longshot cocked his head. "There's something about that level of coordination that's very, uh... _intimate_. I feel I shouldn't be watching."

"Gah!" Monet punched his arm. "Can't unsee it, damn you."

"I see something else." There was an odd note in Terry's voice, and Jamie looked at her. She gestured at the fight. "Look at him, Jamie. He's only using his powers as a last resort. I think we forgot... the same thing _he_ forgot, without them. He's a hardcore Cable-trained junkyard dog, and a lot of the time we treated him like an amputee. Maybe if we'd put him in the front line more, he wouldn't have been so depressed."

"Now wait a _minute_ ," Jamie said. That _we_ of hers was a kindness, and he knew it. He was all ready with his defence - how he wasn't in the business of getting his people killed, how he had to put the right person on the right job, how Rictor was invaluable whether he was punching heads or a keyboard and it wasn't Jamie's fault if he was too damn macho to see that. Then he looked down at the small, joyous engine of destruction that was Rictor on the ground. As he watched Ric took a swipe to the face, went down, kicked the other guy's legs out from under him, smashed the falling jaw with his other foot and bounced back up like a kid's toy on springs as his opponent hit the dirt. Shatterstar yelled something and they shared a look; Jamie couldn't see, but he knew perfectly well that Ric was grinning like a maniac through the blood on his face. He might not walk for a month, but it was his body to break if he liked and he was doing the job that needed to be done and he was _winning._ And there Jamie had always prided himself on not being Scott Summers, not setting himself up as the wise strategic Risk-player with other peoples' lives, always claimed the improvising and individualism and sheer backbiting _messiness_ of X-Factor was a badge of honour, the ultimate expression of trust in his team. But... he hadn't quite trusted Ric to be himself without his powers, and so he hadn't been. "Okay," he said quietly. "Fair point."

Terry patted his arm. "Well," she said cheerfully. "I suppose it wouldn't spoil their fun _too_ much if we backed them up, now would it?"

Everything happened very fast for a while. It didn't take long to mop up the dregs; the last group gave a little trouble - they were clearly some sort of elite team - but their ferocity was no match for the integrated randomness of X-Factor and they soon joined their colleagues on the bloody floor. The last man standing was gun-runner-in-chief. He looked incredibly ordinary except for the eyes, which had the ball-bearing sheen of cybernetics. Rictor glared at him with undiluted loathing. "In case any of this was unclear, shithead, you're closed for business."

Jamie put a hand on his shoulder. Both Ric and 'Star looked like absolute hell, begrimed and bloodstained from head to foot, and he was furious with them; but now wasn't the time to break ranks. "He gets it, Ric. We'll call S.H.I.E.L.D. I'll bet this guy's on their Big List of Interplanetary Assholes."

The arms dealer laughed. Under his bruises, he looked coolly at his captors. "Go ahead and call. You're just a hiccup, nothing more. You have no idea what's going on here."

There was a thin singing noise, and Shatterstar's blades were at the dealer's throat. He didn't do cool in these situations. He did the sort of manic, sharklike grin that would make Patrick Bateman back away quickly. But the dealer didn't look at him. His gaze went right past 'Star to the portal rig that loomed behind them.

As if on cue the rig activated, its wide arch filling with dense metallic light. The air hummed at an escalating pitch that made their ears pop and their eyeballs ache.

"What the hell...?"

The dealer smiled. "They're coming. The buyers... they're finally here. And you won't like them. Not at all. You'll think our little squad was a touring party."

"He ain't kidding," Pip said. "There's a reason that thing is so damn big. They're comin' in force!"

"I can't switch it off," Longshot yelled from the controls. "It's bio-locked, a DNA remote. Only _he_ can do it."

Rictor grabbed the dealer by the lapels. The man's teeth began to rattle. "Turn it off or I'll milkshake your brains." The dead steel eyes didn't flinch, just watched the portal with evangelical triumph.

"Great," Jamie muttered. "A gun-runner _and_ a fanatic."

Shatterstar laid a set of swords on each side of the man's neck, braced until they drew blood. "Turn it off or you'll think decapitation is a paper cut." Ric snorted. 'Star looked sheepish. "That one sounded better in my head," he admitted.

"Oh, for heaven's sake." Monet tapped Rictor on the shoulder. "Excuse me, mister knock-their-teeth-out-then-punch-them-in-the-stomach-for-mumbling. There _are_ other ways of making people do things." She gestured at herself and Terry. "Step aside and let the artists work."

"No need," Ric said. Suddenly he was relaxed; he let go of the dealer and backed away. "C'mon, guys. Let's get some distance and watch the fun."

"Fun?"

"Damn straight." Ric's eyes glittered. "I wanna see what these super-scary buyers do to _this_ guy when they find out I filled all their shitty death boxes with alien-armament soup."

For the first time, the dealer blinked. "What?"

Ric pointed. "'Star, would you mind?"

"Not at all." 'Star walked over to a fallen crate and sliced it open with a flourish. Out poured an indecipherable scree of cogs, tubes, chips and lenses, fine as a shower of beads, chased by orphaned bits of metal casing. It was as if someone had put the guns through a high-powered blender; which, in a way, they had. He'd simply shaken them to pieces.

"Your merchandise seems to have developed some faults," 'Star said pleasantly. "And just in case you think he's bluffing..." He punctured a dozen other crates at random, all with the same effect.

Jamie leaned over to Rictor. "When did you do that?" he asked under his breath.

Ric grinned. "Soon's we got here. That's what made the wall fall down. Made a good entrance, too."

"No," the dealer was mumbling. "No, no, no. Can't happen. Not _this_ deal. No."

"So turn the portal off, asshat."

The dealer looked around him at his fallen men, then back at Rictor. A spasm of rage twisted his face and was gone, replaced by a kind of crazed serenity. "If you knew them as I do, you'd wish for this too. You'd beg me to take you with us."

"You're going nowhere."

The dealer smiled coldly. "Trust me, nowhere is preferable to what you're about to face."

" _No!_ " Jamie yelled. He wasn't fast enough. The dealer slumped to the floor, white froth dripping from his mouth, some suicide pill or implant. The portal kept running. Jamie felt for a pulse, knowing he wouldn't find one. Under his hands, the body's temperature spiked. Longshot pulled him away just in time; he watched in appalled fascination as the body blazed white-hot then sank to a long heap of fine, dark ash.

"Holy crap..."

"Auto-incineration," Longshot said grimly. "Another DNA control. If I'm not mistaken, we should step back now."

"What...? Oh God, no." All over the warehouse bodies were dissolving in white light. There were pitiful screams from men who were only wounded, still conscious as they burned. It was over in seconds. The warehouse stood empty except for X-Factor, the crates, the teleport rig, and scattering drifts of noxious black ash.

And the portal was still open.

"Jesus," breathed Jamie. "He went out like that rather than meet these 'buyers' empty-handed. We've got to shut that thing down."

"How?" said Terry. "The DNA it's coded to just went up in smoke."

"Not all of it." Shatterstar held up his swords, edged with blood. He looked at Rictor. Neither of them said a word. They started running.

"Guys, wait!"

"No time!" Ric yelled. The light inside the portal was moving, thickening into three-dimensional shapes. Jamie thought he saw tentacles, nightmares right out of Lovecraft roiling from the between-channels murk. Rictor stretched his hands towards the rig, throwing a wave of interference at whatever frequency it pulsed on; the shapes receded, but only so far. 'Star tore the metal panel off the controls, reached in and pulled out a tangle of circuitry surrounding some kind of sphere. He typed something on the control keys then raised his swords, a jagged play of white light round his hands like a smaller version of his teleport aura. The drone of the rig scaled to nosebleed pitch; the swords flashed, and with a shriek the portal deactivated, its screen of light pulling inside out and disappearing. Silence rushed in, almost unbearable after the portal's whine.

Monet stared at the portal. " _How_ did you do that?" she asked Shatterstar.

'Star shrugged. "The technology's familiar. The controls require a DNA signature. He must have had some sort of bioengineered transmitter to do it, but it _can_ be done manually if you know how to apply the code. In other words..." He waggled his swords and grinned. "I hacked it."

"Uh, 'Star?" Rictor was still at the portal, fussing with the controls. "Is this timer supposed to be counting?"

'Star looked thrown. "Counting...?"

 _Oh crap_ , Jamie thought. "Up or down?" Ric's face said it all.

Shatterstar said something hideously vulgar in Cadre. "I'm an idiot. I should have _known_ there'd be a self-destruct."

X-Factor backed at speed away from the rig, taking refuge among the crates. "Why would somethin' like that have a self-destruct?" Pip demanded.

'Star looked at him in annoyance. "Anything misusable has a self-destruct. Anything of potentially villainous application. I should have remembered."

"Cable teach you that?" Jamie asked sarcastically.

"No, _Phineas and Ferb._ " Then he looked at the rig in horror. "Rictor!"

"It's okay! I can stop it!" Ric was hammering away on the portal's keypad.

"Get _back!_ "

"Nah, I've seen kids' calculators harder than this. I can fix it, I'm _sure_... Oh." He looked up, his face pale. "Maybe I can't."

Shatterstar flung himself back towards the rig as Rictor started running. Maybe they met before the countdown finished, maybe they didn't - Jamie was never sure. The explosion was deafening, and it seemed to wipe them out like dust.


	3. Clockwork

Fire, fumes, choking heat, the scrapyard clatter of torn metal raining down around them. Jamie scrambled to his feet, blindly reabsorbing dupes. "Everybody, call out!" One by one they replied, drawing together out of the smoke, coughing, shaken but unhurt. Everybody but Rictor and Shatterstar.

"Ric! 'Star! Goddammit..." He couldn't see a blasted thing.

Terry ran up. "Did they - ?"

He gripped her arm, too worried to answer. There was an icy, sinking moment that seemed to last for hours and nobody, not even Pip, had anything funny to say. At last, they heard something. Two voices floated lazily out of the acrid gloom, followed at length by two dishevelled silhouettes.

"It's Friday."

"Yes, it is."

"We oughta do this every Friday."

"Will it count as a date?"

"If you buy me a beer, it'll count as a date."

"If beating people up and then drinking beer is a date, we started dating a _lot_ sooner than I thought."

"Not soon enough. C'mere."

The smoke cleared and there they were, unrepentantly smooching in front of the flames and wreckage. They both looked like Wile E. Coyote after a barrel of dynamite, but neither seemed to mind.

"Sheesh. Who said romance was dead?" Pip said sourly.

"I'm going to kill them," Jamie muttered, dizzy with relief.

'Star leaned back, but didn't let go. "You taste like raw steak."

"Mmph." Ric spat out a tooth and grinned. "Sorry."

Okay, it was _definitely_ time for the riot act. But as Jamie got ready to stomp over there, a small hand clamped around his wrist. He turned round and came face to face with Layla. Behind her Guido and Rahne surveyed the debris with, respectively, envy and resignation. "Heavy traffic, was it?" Jamie hissed.

"Wait," Layla said simply.

Like an echo, Shatterstar said it too. "Wait." When Rictor turned back to him, he reached out and held Ric's shoulders. "I just wanted to check... that you know something," he said slowly.

"What, 'Star?"

"That we could have done this - this, or something very like it - _before._ Before you got your powers back." Rictor ducked his head and scowled, but 'Star cupped the side of his head with one soot-blackened hand, looking so fiercely sincere that the sneering _yeah, right_ never made it out of Ric's mouth. "Tell me you know that," 'Star insisted softly.

There was a brief, loaded silence. Then Ric puffed out a breath and leaned against him. "Yeah," he mumbled. "Okay. _Maybe._ "

Shatterstar smiled. It wasn't the feral widescreen smile he used on his enemies; it was his real smile, shy and grave. " _Maybe_ will do," he said. "For now."

Layla turned to Jamie. "Get it out of your system, you'll feel better," she said calmly.

Jamie searched his mind crossly for words she wouldn't see coming. As usual, he couldn't find them. "'Quality time,'" he said. "Seriously?"

"Yes. Seriously. They got the job done, and it was good for Rictor. And who says teamwork shouldn't be fun?"

"You call _that_ teamwork?"

"Yep. And so do you." She smiled brilliantly. "The X-Factor. Expect the unexpected. If that's really your philosophy then everything happened exactly the way it should. You trust people to make it up as they go along, the _right_ way, and they do. Look at the end result. Chaos in process, but clockwork in hindsight."

Jamie glowered at her, trying to stay angry. She was voicing his exact train of thought from earlier, and it was just as creepy as it always was. Rictor and Shatterstar slouched up, arms draped around each other more for support than affection; they were both limping badly. 'Star was mopping at a horrific gash on his forehead that was probably healing, but currently showed bone; Rictor's right eye was swollen shut and his nose, cheekbones and lip were black with drying blood. The X-Factor be damned, Jamie thought; there was no way on this earth they weren't getting yelled at.

"You stupid jerks. You could've been killed."

"Well, we weren't." Ric tried to shrug, but grimaced. "Ow."

"You ignored a direct order."

"Not at all," Shatterstar said. "You told us not to think about it. So we didn't. We just did it."

Jamie peered at him with narrowed eyes. He'd long suspected 'Star of using his your-Earth-ways-are-strange-to-me shtick to weasel out of anything a normal person would have had to answer for. 'Star was pulling his most humourless poker-face, but there was almost certainly a gleam in his eye. Head on 'Star's shoulder, Rictor was smirking. His eyes were dreamy and glazed from the adrenalin comedown. Jamie threw up his hands. "I give up. I just freaking give _up._ I don't know which one of you's the worse influence on the other."

Ric and 'Star exchanged a glance then pointed at each other, deadpan.

Jamie rolled his eyes. "At least you lost the damn hat," he grumbled. "Small mercies."

"Oh!" 'Star held up a finger. He unzipped his jacket, tugged out a very crushed, somewhat charred fedora, punched it into shape and, very carefully, settled it on Rictor's head. He regarded the effect solemnly, and then he smiled. "There."

Ric beamed at him drunkenly. "My hero."

"You look like Marty McFly in _Back To the Future 2_ ," said Jamie. "I hope you know that."

Ric flashed him a middle-fingered salute. "Talk to the hat."

There was an ominous creak overhead. "Can we leave this deathtrap before it buries us?" said Monet.

They ducked out of the leaning warehouse and started across the compound, shaking dust out of their clothes and hair. Halfway to the gates Shatterstar paused suddenly, pulling Ric to a standstill, looking back at the warehouse. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "a person _could_ reconstitute those guns. I mean, if that person had the time, and the money, and the technology... it's possible. They were _very_ specialised. They'd actually be easier to rebuild than source and buy again."

Rictor frowned at the building. "Crap, you're right. Hadn't thought of that." Distractedly, he disentangled himself from 'Star and walked away, staring intently at the ground. The others watched as he shuffled about, retracing and doubling back, muttering softly to himself, occasionally crouching to run his hands over the hard-packed mud until he gradually zeroed in on a particular patch. Green light crawled faintly on his hands, but no-one felt a tremor.

"What the hell's he doing?"

"Shh." The look on 'Star's face said, approximately, _I could watch this all day._

"Okayyyy." Ric straightened up. "You guys might wanna back off a bit," he said. He waited until they'd moved, and then he stamped one foot.

Nothing happened.

"Aw, c'mon," Ric said, coaxingly. He moved two inches to the left, and stamped again.

The ground lurched. An intense muffled tearing noise zigzagged from Rictor's feet all the way to the warehouse and the whole thing sagged, folding inwards with a screech of buckling metal. An immense crack yawned from inside the building, wider and wider until the walls collapsed across it and the roof sank on top of them and X-Factor collectively staggered as a bone-rattling quake engulfed the compound and the air filled with the roaring sound of what might have been thousands of steel crates sliding into an abyss. Ric brought his hands together like an orchestra conductor and the ground began to close, great jaws of earth and rubble ripping up warehouse panels, grinding the crates and their fatal contents like so much salt. There was a last sigh of shifting plates and then a vast, cloudy silence. What was left of the warehouse, stabbing up from the ground in crumpled ruins, looked like something designed by Frank Gehry.

Ric brushed off his hands and resettled his hat. "Reconstitute _that_ ," he said smugly. Then abruptly he wavered, staggered and sank to his knees, his face slack with surprise. "Whoa." His eyes rolled white and he keeled over in the dust, out cold.

" _Rictor!_ " 'Star was there in seconds, hugging him against his shoulder, shaking him. Under the blood and dirt he was sheet-white, his voice a terrified monotone. "You've overstretched. You forgot your limits, you're still relearning. We _spoke_ about this. Damn it, Julio, _wake up_..."

 _Oh shit_ , Jamie thought. Automatically he looked at Layla, his mineshaft canary. Her face was infuriatingly blank. Rictor twitched, coughed, cracked one eye and squinted up at Shatterstar. There was the weakest ghost of a cocky grin. "Nag, nag, nag," he whispered.

'Star let out a huge breath, kissed the top of his head, and glared at him. "Don't _ever_ do that again."

As 'Star helped Ric up, Longshot turned to Rahne. "Is this _really_ how X-Force does things?" he asked.

Rahne looked away. "Different X-Force," she said sadly.

Ric heard her. He snaked out his free arm and pulled her close, landed an awkward kiss on her cheek. "X-Force veterans' day," he said gruffly. "C'mon. Drinks on me."

"Eejit." But she scraped up a crooked grin.

Guido clapped a huge hand on Jamie's shoulder. "Think ya could handle a beer, fearless leader?"

Jamie covered his face. "Oh my God, yes."

"Actually, I'd like tequila," said Shatterstar.

" _NO!_ " shouted everybody else.

'Star looked hurt. "What's wrong with tequila?" he asked huffily. "And what's so funny?"

Ric squeezed him, trying (not very hard) to keep his face straight. "The fact that you can't remember what's wrong with tequila? _That's_ what's wrong with tequila, dude."

Guido pointed at them. "You two Expendables wanna get served at all, you better clean up on the way."

"That vile karaoke place isn't far from here," Monet said. "If we're not banned yet."

"We're not banned," Terry answered slyly. "But Jamie has to promise not to sing 'Me, Myself and I' at me again."

Jamie blushed crimson, to crows of delight from the peanut gallery. "I thought we agreed we'd never mention that!"

Terry took his hand. If there was pain under her impish smile he couldn't see it, and he wondered yet again at the strength and heart that made it possible for her to go on liking him - _teasing_ him, even - after everything he'd put her through. They fell into step with Layla and Monet and Guido, following Rahne, Rictor and 'Star towards the compound gate; behind them Longshot and Pip, passing the last bottle of Mojoworld's finest back and forth between them. Terry called Jameson, then S.H.I.E.L.D., then the Avengers, explaining what had happened in her most melting tones until the giant mess behind them became a wily and daring peacekeeping mission, flawlessly executed. It was, Jamie realised, a beautiful afternoon: steel-blue sky and an autumn moon and late sun lengthening the rooftops' shadows and fewer guns and gangsters in the universe than there had been this morning. And his team was horrible, and insubordinate, and awesome; exactly the kind of team he'd wanted, perhaps even the kind of team he deserved. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he knew that he could hit himself for a week without creating a single dupe who wouldn't love this moment. Layla caught his eye and winked. In spite of himself, he laughed.

"Clockwork, my ass," he muttered.


End file.
